After Botanic: A Belfast Story

They first saw each other beneath the arches at fourteen. By the time they learned how to love each other, they were already becoming people who could not stay.Ronan McAuley and Maeve Devlin first notice each other during a school competition at Queen's University Belfast. They do not speak. Years later, they meet again as students and are paired on a project exploring home, identity and the reasons people leave.Maeve is restless, outspoken and determined to build a life beyond the one expected of her. Ronan is observant, guarded and more comfortable behind a camera than explaining what he feels. As they move through rainy Belfast streets, Botanic Gardens and the uncertain years of early adulthood, their friendship becomes a love neither of them knows how to carry.But ambition is pulling Maeve towards Dublin, architecture is calling Ronan to Glasgow, and the habits that draw them together are also beginning to hurt them. Loving each other may be easy. Choosing the same life is not.After Botanic is a tender, bittersweet novel about first love, imperfect timing, leaving home and the people who shape us.

Pagina's: 242, Paperback, Independently published